Too often, people involved in lighting retrofit projects make assumptions. One of the biggest is that a one-for-one replacement of an outdoor pole light will create an acceptable result. Unfortunately, this is not always straightforward.

In a new construction project, a photometric plan is typically drawn up. However, since many lighting contractors do not have the capability to handle photometric designs in-house, if they expect to replace fixtures on a one-for-one basis, they are unlikely to spend the time on photometrics. On those rare occasions they do incorporate the plan into a project, they rely heavily on lighting manufacturers to execute it for them. Lighting specifiers and installers are often pitched by LED lighting manufacturers claiming to provide this service as a value-add, but it can create delays with the project; or, depending on the experience level of the designer, photometrics can be rushed, resulting in a less-than-optimal design.

It’s well established that replacing a 400W metal-halide (MH) area light fixture with a 100–150W LED fixture will result in crisper and brighter illumination, so many contractors skip the photometric process and start installing as quickly as they can in order to move on to the next project. This mistake not only can negatively impact your bottom line but it can do the same to a customer’s overall satisfaction.

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Before diving in to how delivering photometric plans can both enhance your business and improve customer relationships, it is important to understand some of the basic elements of a photometric design.

Foundations of photometrics

At its basic level, a photometric design is a simulation of a lighting plan that can give the user a 2D and/or 3D view of the illumination provided by installing new LED lighting. It gives installers and specifiers the ability to determine what configuration of lighting fixtures will produce the best illumination for the outdoor application. The photometric design involves calculating both horizontal and vertical illuminance (brightness). Think of the horizontal measurement as the amount of light that lands on a horizontal surface, such as across the parking lot. The vertical measurement is the amount of light measured on a vertical surface such as a building wall. The measure of illuminance that we all know and use each day is called foot candles (mainly in the US) or lux (outside the US). One foot candle is defined as 1 lm/ft2.

Other important elements of a proper photometric design include BUG ratings, foot-candle ratios, optics, CCT, tilt, orientation, and roll.

FIG. 1. The diagram above represents the various beam distributions that can be achieved by incorporating specialized optics into outdoor LED lighting designs during photometric planning. (Image credit: Deco Lighting.)

One must be very careful with glare. If you are working on high mast poles, it is not much of an issue, but if the light source is located at a lower level, glare can be a major problem for pedestrians and drivers, especially if older customers frequent a parking lot, for instance. Remember, if your customer is unhappy because its customers are complaining, it will cost time and money to fix the problem. It may also cause you to lose future business from that customer.

Foot-candle ratios in outdoor parking lots usually refer to the max-to-min ratio. This indicates the proportion of the maximum foot-candle level to the minimum foot-candle level. 15:1 is the IES standard and if you go above that, the result is an unevenly-lit parking lot. In most cases, it is not feasible to install additional poles, leaving lighting designers stuck with the inherited layout. If the lot is a simple open rectangle, you probably will not encounter many problems using LED fixtures to achieve this 15:1 ratio. However, if the lot is oddly shaped and/or has obstructions, you will need to utilize one of the most important features of LED lighting — optics. Optics are lenses that direct LED light to achieve specific beam distribution patterns at particular angles. Fig. 1 shows examples of different LED optics patterns.

We recently completed a project for an REIT that owns a shopping center. The company’s tenant was insisting on higher foot-candle levels in order to renew the lease. While it would have been easy to just increase the foot-candle levels, we brought to the customer’s attention that it also had a lot of shadowing and replacing fixtures one for one would not resolve that issue. Additionally, we explained that the lighting at the entrance to the center was not designed correctly. After going through a few rounds of photometric plans, we were able to create a parking lot lighting plan that not only met the lease and REIT customers’ foot-candle requirements but virtually eliminated shadows and dark spots, improving the lot entrance dramatically (Fig. 2). Both the REIT client and its tenant were so happy with the outcome that we are now working on a portfolio of other shopping center projects for the same client.

Another tactic that lighting designers employ to aid in keeping the optimal max-to-min ratio for uniform illumination is tilt, orientation, and roll.

If an LED fixture is facing down at the ground, there is zero-degree tilt. We can then adjust it so the fixture is anywhere between 0–180°. But we need to be mindful with tilt. Many municipalities also regulate the amount of light traveling up. This is known as the dark sky movement. The premise is that activists and municipal authorities want to minimize light pollution and do not want light traveling up at all. Lighting professionals should first check to see if there are any local regulations that may apply to the project they are working on. If there are none, tilting an LED fixture may be the only way to create more uniformity on the lot without adding more poles.

FIG. 2. The before and after photos show the previous outdoor lighting (top) versus a properly placed LED luminaire layout (bottom) achieved using proper photometrics, which resulted in fewer shadowy areas and a more uniformly-lit parking lot.

Orientation refers to the horizontal movement of the LED fixture on the pole. If we use a compass as an example, there are 360°. We can move the fixture anywhere within the 360° to maximize the lighting pattern.

Roll is similar to tilt, but instead of the fixture moving straight up or down, the fixture may be turned side to side with one edge going up and the other edge going down. So in theory, the fixture can be positioned at 90°. Once again, this affects Dark Sky standards, so we need to be precise in planning and practice. Unless a proper photometric analysis is performed, you will be unable to optimize the layout and design for the project.

Let’s look at a case study as an example. For an outdoor LED lighting project in Tennessee, our team had a max-to-min ratio of 30:1 by just replacing fixtures one for one, using the same position as the current fixtures. When we adjusted the layout using tilt and orientation changes, we were able to bring the ratio down to 15:1, which is a dramatic improvement.

Consider color quality and efficacy

There are some other lighting characteristics and metrics that impact light quality and luminaire performance: CCT, CRI, and efficacy.

Many researchers are studying the effects of blue-rich light. Many in the lighting world are waiting for IES to take a firm stand on this. My suspicion is that the trend will be moving toward warmer CCT in the future, whether the research is conclusive or not.

To add more complexity to the color discussion, color rendering index (CRI) is a quantitative measure of the ability of a light source to reveal the colors of various objects faithfully in comparison with an ideal or natural light source. Light sources with a high CRI are desirable in color-critical applications, such as neonatal care, art restoration, and high-end retail environments. For outdoor lighting, CRI does not play much of a critical role. Most LED outdoor luminaires have a CRI of 70 or better, which is fine for illuminating a general-use parking lot, for instance. The exception to this is a lot that displays items where color is very important, such as an automotive dealership. In this scenario, there may be a need to show off vibrant colors and the customer and designer may opt for a higher CRI.

The disadvantage of a higher-CRI fixture is that the efficacy (lumens per watt) decreases. You can be losing 20% or more of the light level to achieve a higher CRI and the energy consumption is higher. Is this tradeoff worthwhile? That depends on the project’s objectives and customer preference. We would want to see a photometric study with both high CRI and normal CRI in this situation so that we can evaluate the differences and present the options to the customer.

When a luminaire has higher efficacy, it consumes less energy and saves the customer more money on energy bills while achieving adequate light levels. When comparing light fixtures side by side, as long as you can achieve your goals for uniformity and light levels, the customer will be better off using an LED fixture with higher efficacy. In the short term, the fixture may be more expensive; therefore, it may be harder to sell the project.

Upfront cost is the dilemma many of us face when selling LED technology. Showing the customer the results of a before and after comparison on projects where LED retrofits were properly planned out with photometrics, designed for the intended use, and properly installed can be very persuasive. Providing information on payback from energy savings may also help to move the needle. Attention to these details will help to build better business relationships and ensure successful outdoor LED lighting projects.

DAVID ETZLER, LEED GA, president of SIB Lighting, manages the firm’s strategy and growth, including strategic partnerships with property management firms and building owners all across the country. He came to SIB Lighting through the acquisition of his company, HOA Energy Advisors, in May of 2015. HOA Energy helps commercial properties save money on their energy bills through lighting and lighting control systems. Prior to HOA Energy, Etzler founded and owned BusinessEvents, LLC, an event production and management company focused on the energy market. BusinessEvents produced energy conferences, tradeshows and special events all over the world.

According to the latest report from LEDinside, a division of the market research firm TrendForce, 2018 Commercial Lighting, Smart Lighting and Panel Light Market Report, the global LED indoor commercial lighting market will reach USD 15.87 billion in 2018, accounting for 42% of the global LED lighting production value, moreover, the global LED commercial lighting is estimated to achieve CAGR of 3% during 2018-2021, growing slower than previous years, mainly resulting from the price decrease of LED lighting products and the reduction in market installation.

Commercial intelligent lighting will takes up 33.5% of the global intelligent lighting market scale in 2018, reaching USD 2.53 billion. Digitalization can bring more new business models and value growth opportunities, therefore commercial lighting is the largest application of intelligent lighting at present, It is expected that the global intelligent lighting market will keep growing in next few years, reaching USD 13.4 billion by 2020.

You've likely heard the phrase "Internet of Things" — or IoT — at some point, but you might also be scratching your head figuring out what it is or what it means.

What is the Internet of Things?

The Internet of Things, commonly abbreviated as IoT, refers to the connection of devices (other than typical fare such as computers and smartphones) to the Internet. Cars, kitchen appliances, and even heart monitors can all be connected through the IoT. And as the Internet of Things grows in the next few years, more devices will join that list.

We've compiled a beginner's guide of IoT terms and questions to help you navigate the increasingly connected world.

What is an Internet of Things device?

Any stand-alone internet-connected device that can be monitored and/or controlled from a remote location is considered an IoT device. With more smaller, more powerful chips, almost all products can be an Internet of Things devices.

What is the Internet of Things ecosystem?

All the components that enable businesses, governments, and consumers to connect to their IoT devices, including remotes, dashboards, networks, gateways, analytics, data storage, and security is part of the Internet of Things ecosystem.

Other Internet of Things Terms & Definitions:

Entity: Includes businesses, governments, and consumers.

Physical layer: The hardware that makes an IoT device, including sensors and networking gear.

Network layer: Responsible for transmitting the data collected by the physical layer to different devices.

Application layer: This includes the protocols and interfaces that devices use to identify and communicate with each other.

Remotes: Enable entities that utilize IoT devicesto connect with and control them using a dashboard, such as a mobile application. They include smartphones, tablets, PCs, smartwatches, connected TVs, and nontraditional remotes.

Dashboard: Displays information about the IoT ecosystem to users and enables them to control their IoT ecosystem. It is generally housed on a remote.

Analytics: Software systems that analyze the data generated by IoT devices. The analysis can be used for a variety of scenarios, such as predictive maintenance.

Data storage: Where data from IoT devices is stored.

Networks: The internet communication layer that enables the entity to communicate with their device, and sometimes enables devices to communicate with each other.

IoT Predictions, Trends, and Market

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, expects there will be more than 24 billion IoT devices on Earth by 2020. That's approximately four devices for every human being on the planet.

And as we approach that point, $6 billion will flow into IoT solutions, including application development, device hardware, system integration, data storage, security, and connectivity. But that will be money well spent, as those investments will generate $13 trillion by 2025.

Who will reap these benefits? There are three major entities that will use IoT ecosystems: consumers, governments, and businesses. For more detail, see the Industries section below.

What are the industries affected by IoT?

While we can expect IoT to affect every industry one way or another, there are several environments within the three groups of consumers, governments, and ecosystems will benefit the greatest from the IoT. These include:

What are IoT Platforms?

One IoT device connects to another to transmit information using Internet transfer protocols. IoT platforms serve as the bridge between the devices' sensors and the data networks.

The following are some of the top IoT platforms on the market today:

Amazon Web Services

Microsoft Azure

ThingWorx IoT Platform

IBM's Watson

Cisco IoT Cloud Connect

Salesforce IoT Cloud

Oracle Integrated Cloud

GE Predix

IoT Security & Privacy

As devices become more connected thanks to the IoT, security and privacy have become the primary concern among consumers and businesses. But it's not slowing IoT adoption; in fact, US smart speaker adoption has grown 54% from December 2017 to February 2018, according to a 2018 comScore survey.

However as more connected devices pop up around the globe, cyber attacks are also a growing threat. Hackers could penetrate connected cars, critical infrastructure, and even people's homes. As a result, several tech companies are focusing on cyber security in order to secure the privacy and safety of all this data.

More to Learn

The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing rapidly as companies around the world connect thousands of devices every day. But behind those devices, there's a sector worth hundreds of billions of dollars supporting the IoT.

Platforms are the glue that holds the IoT together, allowing users to take full advantage of the disruptive potential of connected devices. These platforms allow the IoT to achieve its transformational potential, letting businesses manage devices, analyze data, and automate the workflow.

In a new report, Business Insider Intelligence examines the evolving IoT platform ecosystem. We size the market and identify the primary growth drivers that will power the IoT platform space in the next five years. And we profile many of the top IoT platforms, discussing key trends in the platform industry like platform consolidation.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

The IoT platforms market is set to expand rapidly in the years to come, with current leading platforms expanding and others entering the space.

We define the key categories into which IoT platforms fall: building block open platforms, closed high-end platforms, and product management platforms.

We highlight the ways platforms can help companies reach the full five stage potential of the IoT.

As the IoT establishes itself as the next adaptation in hardware and software applications, CHUCK PICCIRILLO outlines how enabling technology and lighting providers must shift to a new conceptual and development model to ensure their businesses will thrive in the connected spaces market.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and lighting have been living in separate worlds until very recently. Over the past decade, indoor lighting has evolved from traditional incandescent and fluorescent technology into solid-state lighting (SSL) and subsequently connected lighting management systems. Simultaneously, the IoT has established itself as the next technology revolution destined to create a plethora of smart applications that will change the way we work, play, and live. As the number of connected devices reaches an all-time high, these two worlds are coming together in a way that is mutually beneficial.

Lighting is ubiquitous — it’s in every space within a building. It is the perfect conduit for collecting information on what is happening in a building at any given time, because it is ideally located in the space and is connected to a power source. Sensors embedded in luminaires transform light points into data nodes on the lighting network, creating the enabling technology infrastructure for smart building applications and the IoT. As more emphasis is placed on connected spaces, an increasing number of use cases become possible.

This opportunity spawns several questions. What is driving the adoption of smart lighting and IoT? What will the ecosystem look like that moves this market forward? What factors should be considered when choosing a networked lighting control system, and what are the first steps to get started?Smart lighting and the IoT ecosystem

A complete end-to-end IoT solution requires a lot of capabilities, and no one entity can provide this on its own. In reality, IoT solutions will be based on the latest innovations and technologies as well as partnerships and alliances, where each organization contributes its own area of expertise to form a complete solution.

Partnerships are emerging between lighting companies and other technology-based companies — many of which were unlikely before this latest technology revolution. Although still in its infancy, many lighting companies are teaming up with traditional IT organizations, software service providers, and, in many cases, other lighting companies to tackle new and innovative applications.

For example, lighting companies need a cloud infrastructure to store data collected about the space and are forming partnerships with companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc., which can provide services that connect lighting networks to the cloud.

This begs the question: What do you do with the information that is coming from the lighting network? Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies are taking information to produce the applications and analytics that are needed for particular smart IoT use cases. Since lighting is everywhere, each light point can provide very accurate data about a specific space within a building and this level of accuracy enhances the analytics capability that SaaS applications require. They can gain granular insights from lighting system data about what is happening in the space.

Drivers for adoption of smart lighting

As previously mentioned, lighting is ubiquitous and well-suited for collecting information about activities taking place in a building at any given time. With this as its backdrop, there are other major factors leading to the adoption of smart lighting systems.

Building efficiencies. By creating a digital version of a building and its internal operations including systems and occupant activities, you can visualize what happens in the building on a day-to-day basis and use those insights to make better decisions. These reports enable facility executives to improve efficiencies while they centrally manage systems in the building or group of buildings.

Considerations for IoT deployment

Selecting an infrastructure that will support IoT can be an overwhelming task. There are still many unknowns about what the exact requirements will be, and no one wants to make an investment mistake. However, there a few key considerations when choosing an intelligent lighting system infrastructure as a platform for IoT, which can help future-proof the system.

Be prepared to scale. Choose a software-based, scalable infrastructure that can grow in size and scope, protecting and extending the value of your investment. Software is easy and cost effective to upgrade, and you will not need to rip out and replace expensive hardware as you grow or adjust your space.

Stay flexible and agile. Choose an infrastructure that not only supports change but handles it quickly. Most office space is reconfigured regularly to accommodate employee movement and space adjustments. Chances are you will need to adjust lighting and other smart building applications. You’ll want to manage luminaires and control zones quickly with a few mouse clicks and without rewiring or moving fixtures. And individual addressability of each luminaire will enable you to capture the granular data needed for applications such as predictive maintenance.

Go wireless. Wireless technology has improved drastically over the past five years and it will continue to improve moving forward. In the not-so-distant future, virtually everything will communicate wirelessly including emerging IoT applications that will make your smart building even smarter, so be prepared. The initial technical challenges of deploying wireless have been overcome and now wireless is the connectivity of choice because it costs less to install, is more flexible in retrofit spaces than hard-wired systems, and can be deployed quickly.

Stick with non-proprietary technology.A standards-based, non-proprietary platform is key to enabling the variety and number of potential IoT applications that will surface, including those from startups. Access to a broad ecosystem fundamentally conflicts with a proprietary platform strategy. You don’t want your options to be limited as you roll out specific IoT applications. Your system should have the ability to connect to a range of devices from multiple manufacturers. Pick a solution that allows you to select the right hardware for the space, without being beholden to a specific manufacturer.

The platform needs to connect to the cloud for data storage and SaaS-based applications such as space utilization, asset tracking, conference room and desk bookings, and more. Open, cloud-connected platforms enable more developers to deliver more innovative apps quickly and cost-effectively.

Streamline the user experience. Choose a system that is easy-to-use for both the facility manager and occupants. Additional features and functionality should not translate to additional complexity for facility managers and their operations team. As smart systems evolve, facility managers will be putting more control of the environment into the hands of occupants to support their preferences in their workspaces. A simple user experience is crucial to making the facility team’s tasks manageable.

Put IoT potential to work

IoT brings smart lighting to the next level. Think of it as smart lighting on steroids. While smart lighting brings efficiencies and automation to the lighting system, the addition of IoT tells a broader story about the space, the occupants, and the building itself.

Like any new technology wave, there will be those who take a cautious, slow-roll approach, while early adopters want it deployed everywhere as soon as possible. As the industry grows and matures, more pilots are being deployed to ensure the products of all suppliers involved in an IoT system are compatible for seamless operation.

It depends on the use case, but some pilots can run in as few as two weeks, while a more typical pilot period lasts approximately six months, with many choosing a phased approach versus a full deployment. Once deployed, and depending upon the type of application, the return on investment may be immediate or not too far off in the future.

As the IoT and smart lighting worlds continue to merge, the ecosystem of lighting manufacturers and software providers will continue to expand, bringing unique applications to market that have yet to be imagined. The promise of a new intelligent world is a reality and it starts with smart lighting.

CHUCK PICCIRILLO is head of product – Lighting Networks & Services for Osram. A 19-year veteran of the Osram organization, Piccirillo has served in engineering roles, both managing projects and delivering manufacturing solutions, and later moved into product marketing and business development roles with Osram. He participated in a pre-engineering program with Saint Bonaventure University, received a BS in chemical engineering from Clarkson University, and completed an MBA program with a focus on high tech at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. Piccirillo is a member of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) and is Lighting Certified.

For retail businesses, installing the right lights can reduce energy costs by up to 15 per cent

In today’s competitive retail environment, effective lighting is not only a customer expectation, but essential for achieving ‘the right look’ for a retail outlet.

While most retailers recognise the importance of lighting in providing a pleasant shopping and working environment, few merchandisers realise that it’s possible to reduce up to 15 per cent off their energy costs, by installing the right lighting technology.

The retail industry often demands bright, flattering lighting to draw customers and maximize sales but this is seldom very energy-efficient. Yet there are substantial savings to be made on both the shop floor and in the back office, with many simple and inexpensive ways to reduce the energy consumption and costs associated with high-impact lighting without compromising profits.

Saving energy in a retail business is one of the simplest ways to directly increase margins without the need to grow sales—in fact, a 20 per cent cut in energy costs can represent the same bottom line benefit as a 5 per cent increase in sales, making energy-saving the new profit centre for retail businesses.

It’s estimated that a 20 per cent saving in retail energy costs is achievable nationally in the UK, totalling some £340 million per year across the sector. And whilst energy costs may be only a small percentage of turnover, they represent a much larger proportion of profit.

By focusing on easily actionable measuresyou’ll be amazed at how simple actions can save energy, cut costs and increase productivity with the quickest payback.

Many energy-saving opportunities are within the control of staff and easily achievable at little to no-cost, which is an ideal way of making energy conservation part of a collaborative staff effort.

Low-to-no cost quick wins

Lighting accounts for anything from 15% to 70% of your total energy costs, depending on the type of store, but there are several quick-fixes you can implement to enhance your energy efficiency and reduce your energy spend:

Lighting’s role in the retail environment

Beyond its basic illumination function, a well-designed lighting scheme must satisfy varied business needs in the retail environment:

Sets the mood and atmosphere of the store so that customers will want to enter

Directs the customers’attention to the merchandise and stimulates impulse buying

Draws attention to the shop and its displays

Helps to enhance the store’s image

Improves the use of space

From the perspective of the owners and staff of a retail outlet, a lighting scheme should:

Provide adequate light to enable transactions to be completed efficiently, leading to fewer errors

Provide favourable working conditions to minimise eye fatigue and general tiredness

Help to create the brand image of a store or chain of stores

Convey an inviting atmosphere within the store

Provide an effective deterrent against crime

Selecting energy-efficient lighting

With the vast range of lighting sources, designs and controls now available, modern lighting techniques present abundant energy-saving opportunities, whilst achieving a greatly enhanced level of illumination and visual appeal at minimum cost.

Making the switch to LEDs

Lighting accounts for about 20% of all electricity generated in the UK, but with most current lighting systems still reliant on inefficient light sources, moving to low-energy lighting such as Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) has never been more critical in energy-saving initiatives.

Install low energy lighting

Originally developed for use in electronics, LEDs have become the light source of choice, providing illumination at a fraction of the cost of legacy sources. LEDs have the highest efficacy and lamp life of all lighting types, are easy to control and have no warm-up period.

They also provide superior colour and contrast, essential in helping to generate sales, particularly in fashion retail where the visual appearance of merchandise is critical, and in food retailing, where produce needs to look appealing.

Refurbishment

Specific display items that require high light levels will benefit from local task lighting, rather than illuminating the whole store to a high level.

Invest in sensors

Occupancy sensors

Installing an occupancy sensor with a photocell override to give the option of keeping lights off on bright days can achieve savings of up to 50% on lighting costs. These automatically turn lights on when a room is occupied and turn them off after a period of vacancy.

Daylight sensors

Light sensors or ‘photocells’ can be used to dim or turn off artificial lighting when there’s sufficient natural daylight. As daylight hours vary throughout the year, sensors help to provide closer control and thus, substantial savings and often pay back their costs in less than a year.

LEDs have delivered amazing energy savings, but CHRISTINA HALFPENNY explains the DesignLights Consortium view that even bigger SSL-centric savings will come with greater penetration, the exploration of new applications, and the move to networked lighting controls.

The rapid evolution of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) over the past decade — a phenomenon fueled by advances both in technology and public policy — has transformed the world lighting market and catalyzed a path to huge energy savings. According to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) most recent report on LED adoption in the US, use of the technology delivered energy savings of nearly 470 trillion BTU in 2016 and reduced energy bills by approximately $4.7 billion. A relative novelty less than ten years ago, LEDs now dominate the residential lighting market and are making steady progress in commercial and industrial applications — with commercial market penetration increasing from less than 1% in 2012 to just under 13% today. By 2035, the DOE predicts LED lamps and luminaires will constitute 86% of all lighting products in the US — saving electricity equal to the total consumed annually by 45 million US homes and reducing energy costs by nearly $52 billion.

Christina Halfpenny

Mission accomplished? Not quite

Like many new technologies that burst onto the scene, LEDs almost instantly eclipsed the benefits their predecessors delivered. But as impressive as these gains are, they scratch the surface of the technology’s full capabilities. LEDs are at a pivotal crossroads, with innovations underway and on the near-horizon promising to greatly multiply potential energy and cost savings, while improving wellbeing and quality of life and providing a practical route to a smart building future.

At the DesignLights Consortium’s (DLC) Stakeholder Meeting in July, more than 250 efficiency program managers, utility contractors, solid-state lighting (SSL) manufacturers, testing laboratory staff, lighting designers, researchers, and others discussed the data, perspectives, predictions, challenges, and opportunities embodied in the current wave of LED innovation that’s set to unlock the technology’s next tier of potential.

For starters, even as we look at the need to replace some first-generation LEDs, there are myriad businesses and institutions across the country that haven’t yet adopted the technology at all. The industry has made much progress bringing high-performance lighting to market, but LED saturation in the commercial and industrial sector is still far off. At less than 13% market penetration, the commercial lighting market remains ripe with opportunity for energy savings — particularly in indoor lighting — and opportunities abound to incentivize greater adoption.

It’s useful to step back and consider why this matters at this moment in time. At our conference in Boston, Mayor Martin Walsh’s director of energy policy and programs Brad Swing told attendees that every energy decision the city makes is aimed at advancing Boston’s target to be carbon neutral by 2050. Boston is hardly alone in its quest to rein in the causes of climate change. It joins New York, Washington, Minneapolis, Boulder, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Toronto, Vancouver, and other international cities on the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance seeking to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 80–100% by 2050. In addition, some 2700 leaders of US cities, states, and businesses have signed on to America’s Pledge, vowing to honor the Paris Agreement’s goal of reducing GHG emissions to ensure the global average temperature increase is less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

As they are the fastest way to reduce energy consumed by buildings, LEDs are truly low-hanging fruit in the battle against climate change. With the technology ready and waiting to take advantage of remaining savings opportunities in the commercial space, LEDs are poised to change our energy load nationwide, reducing the peak and thereby the need to utilize not only more electricity but electricity generated by our dirtiest, carbon-emitting power plants.

At the July DesignLights Consortium Stakeholder Meeting and Conference held in Boston, MA, speakers and attendees representing key organizations and groups such as utilities, municipal and federal government authorities, energy-efficiency programs, lighting manufacturers, and ighting designers learned how DLC efforts will be shaped by market drivers and high-value applications.

While LEDs alone have certainly revolutionized the lighting sector, a new report prepared for the DLC by Energy Futures Group (EFG) of Vermont illustrates that adding networked lighting controls (NLCs) to the LED equation is the real game-changer. The EFG study found that adding NLCs to LED installations boosts energy savings by an average of 47% beyond savings from LEDs alone. This savings potential is equivalent over five years to 75 terawatt hours (tWh) of electricity — about 17 times greater than the 4.5 tWh annual output of the Hoover Dam.

In addition to tremendous energy-saving potential, NLCs promise a suite of non-lighting benefits such as greater personal comfort, better office space utilization, and enhanced workplace security. With sensors embedded in ceiling LED luminaires, for example, lighting can be the pathway to connected, “smart” buildings that enable employees to find and reserve vacant workstations and meeting rooms from a phone app, while employers and building managers can observe areas that are unoccupied at any given hour or day and correspondingly turn down heat, air conditioning, and lighting.

Unfortunately, widespread market penetration of NLCs isn’t likely to occur organically, due to their complicated nature, under-trained contractors, poorly understood benefits, and limited utility support. Meanwhile, continued installation of LEDs without controls hamstrings the technology’s vast promise for optimizing building performance, enhancing quality, and building a platform to the connected building future.

The EFG report found that with aggressive utility support and promotion, however, savings possible from NLCs by 2035 could be more than twice what’s expected to be realized under current utility promotion scenarios. It’s encouraging that utilities were among those voicing support for pushing the NLCs envelope at the recent DLC Stakeholder Meeting. Robust promotion of NLCs leading to significant market uptake can wring several additional years of savings out of current utility efficiency programs. For its part, the DLC has recently rolled out a new set of technical requirements for NLCs and developed installer training and a savings calculator designed to support utilities and the industry in bringing this technology mainstream.

The DLC’s advocacy for NLCs is consistent with our growing emphasis on controlling and enhancing the quality of light — something that will be evident in the “5.0” version of our Qualified Products List (QPL) specifications that will be out for comment January 2019, with a target effective date of January 2020. While product efficacy has taken center stage since issuance of our first specifications in 2009, this revision will give considerable weight to quality of light, while continuing to support products that accelerate broad-scale energy savings. Research tells us that quality of light affects people in profound ways — from productivity, performance, and safety to health, wellbeing, and mood. Yet, in our drive to save energy (and energy dollars), the industry as a whole has sometimes forgotten what lighting is really for: enabling people to see, perform necessary tasks, and feel comfort.

I saw this firsthand on a recent visit to my children’s pediatrician, when the conversation turned from immunization schedules to lighting. Glare from newly-installed LEDs in the exam room was causing physical stress to the staff working under them all day, the doctor and nurse lamented. And it was anything but soothing to small, young patients lining up for throat cultures, tetanus shots, and other medical procedures. Yes, they were saving electricity but at the expense of their core business function: comforting and healing sick children.

While that experience is anecdotal, it reflects an unintended byproduct of high-performance lighting that is not uncommon. Although no one wants to run back the clock to the inefficient pre-LED era, performance standards for LEDs are ripe for tweaking — as is the often the case after speedy and pervasive adoption of any new technology. What’s more, incentivizing better quality of light is not at odds with energy efficiency. It’s just the opposite, as a matter of fact, since better light quality will result in greater adoption of LEDs, translating into more savings.

For Homo sapiens, it’s increasingly clear that quality of light is a serious concern. As Kelly Seeger, technical policy manager at Signify (formerly Philips Lighting) in Burlington, MA, noted at the DLC’s July conference, “Health is the new sustainability,” and smart lighting is an enabler for healthy buildings. Under a newly-emerging paradigm, quality of light is not just about vision but is also critically important for supporting human beings’ natural circadian rhythms, encouraging morning alertness and evening relaxation.

Human-centric lighting often involves lighting controls that adjust for factors such as brightness and color, as well as sensing and adjusting for the amount of natural daylight entering a room. With the US Environmental Protection Agency reporting that Americans spend 90% of their time indoors on average, lighting that mirrors or mimics the daylight outside their office windows is known to boost productivity — as well as spirits!

Designing efficiency programs to strategically address the issues outlined here, as well as to maximize efficiency and performance of new products used by the country’s expanding indoor horticulture and agriculture industries, will be top of mind at the DLC for the foreseeable future. It’s an exciting and important time to be in the field of commercial lighting. Many intriguing challenges, opportunities, and collaborative efforts lie ahead as we put our collective shoulder to the wheel of possibilities for high-performance lighting to lead the way to a cleaner, smarter, healthier world.

In recent years, utility companies have been hard at work to identify new ways to reduce both the cost and consumption of energy. State-mandated policies such as California’s Building Code, Title 24, have been instrumental for these initiatives.

Title 24 mandates that, by 2030, all new nonresidential construction must meet zero net energy (ZNE) requirements, which means a building cannot emit more energy than it produces. Additionally, Title 24 compliance may be required in existing non-residential buildings in the event of certain lighting alterations. Every three years the California Energy Commission (CEC) updates Part 6 of Title 24 in order to continuously reduce energy consumption and stay on track with the state’s ZNE goals. View the free Title 24 compliance webinar here.

It’s 1AM and the temperature in your cold storage facility is unexpectedly increasing. Despite the HVAC system’s night setting being enabled, the temperature continues to rise above the ideal range for preservation of inventory quality and freshness. A few hours pass before an employee notices the temperature abnormality.

As a result of the temperature change, the inventory in the impacted area is deemed useless. In addition to the loss of goods, the problem within the HVAC system itself has to be diagnosed and then fixed. The unforeseen expenses of this incident cut into cash reserves and may even negatively impact profits.

Even though the HVAC glitch eventually gets resolved, a question still lingers whether or not this situation will happen again. What if there were a simple way to check the real-time temperature and relative humidity levels in your facility from a mobile device?

Sense, an IoT and smart sensor-based environmental monitoring application, tracks, reports and verifies temperature and relative humidity to create a smarter facility. Designed for the cold and ambient manufacturing, food production and warehousing facilities, Sense provides live data updates, detailed analysis of past and present temperature and relative humidity readings, and the ability to monitor your facility remotely with its mobile application for smartphones and tablets.

The Sense mobile application communicates with easy-to-mount Temperature and Relative Humidity (TRH) sensors that require minimal configuration and operate wirelessly. Once these smart sensors are placed throughout your facility, Sense will start to populate your dashboard with real-time data and analysis.

People often talk about the Internet of Things (IoT) as a Jetsons-style future state, but the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is already delivering real-world value, to a wide range of commercial, and industrial businesses. Retailers, for example, use beacon technologies that communicate with customers’ smartphones to provide location-specific offers and promotions, enhance the effectiveness of these programs and delivering a new source of data-driven intelligence on consumer behaviors.

Meanwhile, fleet operators are using sensor data to track delivery vehicles and improve the overall efficiency of logistical operations. Yet as interesting as some of these applications are, the larger potential for the IIoT is to deliver wholly new ways to leverage technology for increased productivity. IIoT solutions combine smart sensors and software applications to create smart buildings.

The wide-ranging adaptability of IIoT technology provides great opportunities for businesses. Regardless of your industry or facility type, IIoT solutions seamlessly pivot for varying production schedules, environmental conditions, and more.

For example, foot traffic data insights can inform decisions about the best location for inventory storage units or if a change to regulatory temperature levels occurs, the smart building technology will alert you. IIoT automation is designed to evolve with changes in your facility and business.

According to research from Georgia Tech, IoT vertical ecosystems -- in which verticals develop their own standards but later combine with others’ -- and design thinking are keys to IoT success.

IoT will grow in industry-specific “clusters,” each adopting vertical standards and, eventually, the separate spheres will seek to talk to one another and merge, according to new research from Georgia Tech.

Louchez likened it to the development of the U.S. electrical grid, where small clusters were using a standards approach and continued to combine until the separate grids communicated with each other.

“We’re still at the very beginning of something huge that will unfold over decades,” Louchez said.

Defining IoT as a “metaphor that captures something big that’s going on,” Louchez and CDAIT researchers and members recently released the comprehensive white paper, “Driving New Modes of IoT-Facilitated Citizen/User Engagement.” The paper, intended to educate and spur conversation across academia, industry and government on IoT technologies, defines IoT, provides a list of current standards bodies and security resources, and examines how connected technologies can play out in a user-centric manner in the context of smart cities.

CDAIT brings together academia and industry, with working groups led by the leaders of global companies such as Honeywell, Coca-Cola and Georgia Pacific. Those working groups aim to tackle the main dimensions of IoT, including education and training; startups; IoT thought leadership; security and privacy; and standards, including those for IoT verticals, Louchez said.

In this paper, researchers look at the potential for IoT in cities, examining IoT use cases and their results in places like Barcelona, Los Angeles and Tokyo.

Developing user-centric solutions will be crucial to the proliferation of the IoT, the researchers contend. As such, they recommend leveraging design thinking, for both its principles and supporting methodologies. Agile development processes will help cities, for instance, test and launch small projects, and evolve them quickly with user needs, while the focus on empathy ensures that the user is intrinsic to the development process.

“It has to be focused on the user. You cannot be successful in the IoT if you center whatever you’re doing on technology,” Louchez said. “You have to include the human dimension.”

To help smart cities adopt this approach, researchers created a model – EPIC, short for Ethics, Profit (economic and social), Intimacy and Connectivity — to review the opportunity and impact of investing in IoT. EPIC screens the IoT effort through the four variables for which it was named. Cities can use EPIC as a grid and take the project through the criteria to see how it fares, Louchez said.

In all, the team hopes to foster a dialogue around issues crucial for IoT proliferation and success, along with the understanding that it will be a long process.

“IoT is not a technology. It’s just an outcome brought about by many, many moving parts, many IoT-enabling technologies,” Louchez said.

New to IoT? Here are answers to some of the most common IIoT questions from industry leader Digital Lumens

What do a robotic vacuum cleaner and industrial LED fixtures with embedded sensors have in common? Both operate using the Internet of Things (IoT), a revolutionary network of connected objects driven by sensors which output data into corresponding software applications. Beyond the consumer IoT (wearable fitness trackers, automated home thermostats, and more) is the IoT’s place in the industrial business world called the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Manufacturers and other standard production environments are set to adopt IIoT technology at massive rates, with one report forecasting manufacturing to make up one-fourth of the total IoT market by 2020.

Even though the IIoT can greatly improve your operational efficiency while reducing overhead costs, many decision makers have questions about the available technology, how to introduce it, and how it can benefit their business.

Here are answers to some of the most common IIoT questions:

1. What is a Smart Building?

A smart building is a facility containing sensors throughout which connect to a secure and shared network (the IIoT) for the purpose of generating data insights to inform operational improvements. The sensors monitor specific functions like lighting usage, power metering, temperature and relative humidity levels, activity level around specific assets and predictive maintenance on machinery. The centralized server or cloud-based platform stores, analyzes and, sends the data to a user-friendly software application where facility managers can view a range of historical and real-time data points to maximize energy savings and efficiency.

With a smart building system, organizations save manpower through the automation of manual tasks like walking through a facility with a clipboard to write down environmental conditions. IIoT connectivity also allows facility managers to evaluate insights not generated by manual tracking like employee foot traffic patterns or the best locations to store inventory which can inform lighting usage and make working processes more productive.

2. What are Best Practices for Introducing Smart Building and IIoT Solutions?

With so much potential opportunity, it can be difficult to know where to start with an IIoT implementation. The best approach is for facility managers, sustainability managers, or EHS managers to identify a small pilot project that will demonstrate the effectiveness of one IIoT solution such as, energy savings, facility-monitoring or asset tracking. Many pilot projects focus on sensor-driven lighting because it yields tangible results in a relatively short time period. Whether you have a food and beverage processing plant, warehouse or manufacturing facility, intelligent lighting can produce optimal results in a pilot project.

For those spearheading a pilot project, it is crucial to set and meet specific goals in order to demonstrate the value and potential of smart building technology. For example, if testing the effectiveness of sensor-driven LED lighting coupled with a software application lighting control like SiteWorx Tune over a manufacturing production line, some key measurements to note before and after the pilot test are:

The implementation of industrial LED lighting fixtures with embedded sensors is a common first step for many enterprises investing in IIoT technology. These sensor-laden lighting fixtures working in tandem with software application controls often yield the quickest return on your investment. Given that they are evenly spread out across a facility, the IIoT-enabled lighting fixtures are the ideal source for instrumenting a broader smart building network that can easily expand to non-lighting applications like power monitoring, machine usage and, facility environmental conditions.

If a full lighting upgrade isn’t in the plans, your existing light fixtures can be connected to the IIoT for a fraction of the costs. Digital Lighting Agents (DLAs) contain smart sensors, affix to virtually any LED light fixture and, deliver actionable facility data to smart building software applications.

4. How Do I Use the Data Generated From the IIoT?

Your IIoT solution is set up. The sensors are deployed and communicating their findings to a software application you check multiple times a day on your desktop and smartphone. How can all of the data be used to improve your facility and operations?

“Currently, most IoT data are not used. For example, on an oil rig that has 30,000 sensors, only 1 percent of the data are examined. That’s because this information is used mostly to detect and control anomalies—not for optimization and prediction, which provide the greatest value.”

If your main goal is to spot potential problems, it’s possible you may not need to look at all of the data insights. With optimization of processes and facilities, the data often requires a closer look.

While there will be a lot of data, smart building solutions software like SiteWorx, make it a lot easier to understand and leverage for facility improvements. On the SiteWorx dashboard, there are options to analyze real-time data, compare to current findings to historical data and view results in a variety of formats including charts, bar graphs, line graphs and diagrams. The software is a simple and intuitive tool meant for facility and operations professionals to spot trends and anomalies. Of course, it is important to remember data analyzation basics like comparing similar data sets or apples to apples, normalizing data and getting help from analysts or consultants for large projects like database restructuring.

5. Can My Business Afford to Implement an IIoT System?

Many companies operate on tight budgets in order to maximize profit margins within a competitive market spaces. Industrial lighting solutions are a good starting point thanks to their rapid payback.

Smart lighting software applications like SiteWorx Tune working with with sensor-driven industrial LED fixtures can yield up to 90% in energy savings. Using lighting strategies built into the software application such as dimming, daylight harvesting, and off-hour setback are large contributors to energy savings.

Intelligent lighting isn’t the only way the IIoT can help businesses justify the technology investment. Facility-wide monitoring functions including temperature and relative humidity readings, power load usage, and occupancy patterns allow managers to check conditions and activity 24 hours a day. This around the clock access allows operations managers to proactively prevent events like a burst pipe in a low-touch auxiliary room, temperatures falling below a regulatory level, and, machines running at a high power and wasting energy. The savings from protecting your facility and product from these events can be significant.

The IIoT offers unprecedented opportunity for industrial businesses. As hype builds and competitors adopt the technology, it is important to educate yourself on how it can benefit your organization.

Signify is the new company name of Philips Lighting. This communication arrived to us today!

"We are excited to announce that Philips Lighting has changed its name to Signify. It is the most important milestone since Philips Lighting became a standalone company two years ago.

Signify is a name we chose carefully. It reaffirms the powerful purpose of everything we do – to unlock the extraordinary potential of light for brighter lives and a better world. Its meaning fits with our rich heritage, extending back more than 125 years, as well as with the requirements of a new contemporary and international company with a great purpose.

While the company name has changed, all the things that you have come to trust in us – our commitment, service, and quality – will stay the same. We will also continue to use the name Philips, the most trusted lighting brand in the world, for lighting products.

We are proud of this step in shaping the company as an independent entity, and excited about the future that lies ahead.

For more information about Signify, we invite you to visit our www.signify.com company website."

Somerset, New Jersey – Signify (AEX: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, today announced that it will roll out a major update to its Philips Hue app for iOS and Android-based devices this month. Consumers will enjoy new features as well as enhancements of existing app capabilities, so they can easily and quickly personalize and control their home’s Philips Hue smart lighting system.

We’ve made our smart home lighting even smarter. Our new app is easier to use than ever. New features include shortcuts, which make setting up rooms a breeze, new color pickers as well as 30 new scenes that allow instant scene setting to match your mood or that special moment. In designing the upgrade, we took advice from lighting designers, user experience specialists and, most importantly, from our customers. The result is an app befitting the world’s most loved smart lighting system for the home.”

Jasper Vervoort

Head of Marketing and Product Management, Home Systems & Luminaires at Signify.

Simple navigation to light your home smarter

The app delivers a new look-and-feel and convenient shortcuts, so you can adjust your Philips Hue smart lighting in a few simple taps. For example, with a single press and hold on your room setup or individual lights, you can change the color or set your four last used scenes.

Set your desired ambiance effortlessly

Use the new color pickers feature to transform your lighting into an extraordinary experience. This allows you to group and ungroup lights in a room, and easily choose an exact shade of white or colored light from the palette.

The app also comes with 30 new scenes, handpicked from our lighting designers. With a simple tap, you can enjoy a sunset in Honolulu or a night out in London's Soho district, and match the lighting to your mood. The app update also gives you more scenes to choose from and lets you easily create your own personal scenes. The app extracts the relevant colors from your favorite pictures and intelligently applies them to your lights, bringing your pictures to life.

For an overview of all Philips Hue app updates and features, please visit meethue.com.

Somerset, New Jersey – Philips Lighting (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, today announced its intention to change its name from Philips Lighting to Signify. The choice of our new company name originates from the fact that light has become an intelligent language, which connects and conveys meaning.

The company will continue to use the Philips brand, the most trusted lighting brand in the world, under a licensing agreement with Royal Philips.

“We’re excited to announce our new company name as another step in our transformation journey,” said Philips Lighting CEO Eric Rondolat. “Our new company name is a clear expression of our strategic vision and a fabulous opportunity to introduce a new corporate look and feel that is uniquely our own and will serve to further unite our 32,000 employees. At the same time, we remain proud to continue to use the Philips brand on our products.”

Philips Lighting’s roots date back more than 125 years to the business founded by Frederik and Gerard Philips in 1891 in the Dutch town of Eindhoven. Throughout its history, the company has been at the forefront of many of the lighting industry’s major advancements. Today, it leads the industry worldwide in conventional, LED and connected lighting, with the largest connected lights network in the world.

The new company name satisfies the company’s contractual requirements under the Company Name License Agreement with Royal Philips, which requires that it changes less than 18 months after Royal Philips no longer has a controlling interest

In view of the renaming of the company, a proposal to amend the articles of association of Philips Lighting N.V. will be submitted to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders to be held on May 15. The Philips Lighting N.V. stock exchange ticker will remain (Euronext: LIGHT).

Atlanta's updated ordinance will benefit everyone.In 2017, Atlanta City Council updated a city ordinance to include requiring LEED certification for new construction, as well as requiring existing buildings of less than 25,000 square feet to recertify to LEED standards once per decade. The new construction directive took effect immediately, but the LEED for Existing Buildings requirement will be phased in over 10 years. This change will not only foster greater energy efficiency in the city, but will also lead to a healthier environment for the community.

Starting with LEED standardsIn 2003, Atlanta City Council approved their first-ever sustainable building guidelines, bringing environmental concern to the forefront of the city building design process. Originally, the guidelines required that all new construction, municipal buildings under 5,000 square feet, or involving major renovations, would be centered in the LEED Silver standard. However, merely meeting LEED Silver guidelines meant that city-owned buildings weren’t made to move through the formal certification process, so there was no way to collect data or evaluate performance.

Raising the bar to LEED certificationWith Atlanta’s population at 6 million—and on track to grow 25 percent in the next 15 years—reassessing this policy to further sustainable growth was a key priority. By encouraging a building team to meet a standard rather than achieve certification, the city offered little incentive to participate and no enforcement.

Now, by embedding LEED certification into Atlanta’s green building ordinance, not only has a formal assessment been completed, but open-ended compliance also follows. The collection and analysis of performance data creates an opportunity for further energy and cost savings. On top of updating the ordinance to include LEED for New Construction, existing buildings of less than 25,000 square feet must recertify to LEED standards every 10 years under LEED Operations and Maintenance (LEED O+M).

Although USGBC Georgia believes it’s important to verify new construction performance goals with design, certifying existing buildings in the city will significantly reduce wasted energy. By phasing in the LEED O+M requirements, the city gains foresight for budget concerns and capital improvements on older buildings with greater energy demands. Once implemented, LEED O+M certification for Atlanta means proactive management for facilities management and smarter spending when prioritizing upgrades. Additionally, having a sophisticated understanding of a building’s assets leads to annually reduced operations expenses.

These changes will continue to push the market for further efficiency in the Southeast. Vision for effective change means working smarter for the city and taxpayers alike. As a rule, healthier buildings create an atmosphere for occupants to thrive in while also lessening environmental impact, giving the community a return on their investment.

LED lighting cuts carbon dioxide emissions by half a billion tons in 2017The use of LEDs to illuminate buildings and outdoor spaces reduced the total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of lighting by an estimated 570 million tons in 2017 (equivalent to shutting down 162 coal-fired power plants), according to analyst firm IHS Markit. LED lighting uses an average of 40% less power than fluorescents, and 80% less than incandescents, to produce the same amount of light.

“The efficiency of LEDs is essentially what makes them environmentally friendly,” comments Jamie Fox, principal analyst, lighting & LEDs group. “Therefore, LED conversion is unlike other measures, which require people to reduce consumption or make lifestyle changes.”

LED component and lighting companies were responsible for reducing the global carbon (CO2e) footprint by an estimated 1.5% in 2017, and that is likely to continue to grow as more LEDs are installed worldwide, says IHS Markit.

Another environmental benefit is that LEDs have a longer life span than traditional bulbs and fewer are produced, so the emissions and pollution associated with the production, shipping, sale and disposal of the products is reduced. Secondly, unlike fluorescents, LEDs do not contain mercury. LEDs also decrease air pollution, since most electrical energy is still generated by burning fossil fuels. “While other activities affect climate change more than lighting does, it is still a very strong contribution from a single industry sector,” Fox says.

IHS Markit has tracked the market share for top LED component suppliers for many years. Based on an analysis of this data, Nichia can claim credit for having saved the most carbon overall — accounting for 10% of all LED lighting reduction achieved in 2017, which translates into 57 million tons of CO2 (about the same as 16 coal plants). Cree followed Nichia with 8%, while Lumileds, Seoul Semiconductor, MLS, Samsung and LG Innotek each have a share of 4-7%.

Savings achieved by each company relate to the energy saved by the use of its components while installed in lighting applications. It does not include a whole lifecycle analysis, which would likely lead to a small additional positive benefit, due to the longer life of LEDs.

“LED component companies and lighting companies have transformed their industry,” Fox comments. “They are fighting climate change much more effectively than other industries, and they should be given credit for it. Unlike in other industry sectors, workers at LED companies can honestly say that by selling more of their products, they are helping to reduce global warming.”

IHS Markit notes that its figures are only based on the lighting market. They do not include energy saved by LEDs that replaced other technologies in other sectors, such as automotive and consumer technology.

LED stands for ‘Light Emitting Diode‘, a semiconductor device that converts electricity into light. Super energy efficient and long lasting , LEDs use approximately 85% less energy than halogen or incandescent lighting, which means significant savings on your power bills.

Since 2006, LED Light Technology has provided professional LED lighting services for industrial, commercial and office-based clients. LED Light Technology founders have spent their careers in the general lighting and LED integration. Collectively our executive team has over 70 years in the lighting business coming from companies such as GE, Philips and Cree. We have a vast amount of experience and knowledge of both traditional and LED lighting products and applications. LED Light Technology is a certified women-owned company supporting corporate diversity programs.

As lighting professionals, it is our responsibility to inform our customers of ideal methods to implementing LEDs into their facilities. It is in our best interest to bring you the most cost-effective solution while meeting your primary objectives of improving the quality and performance for your lighting systems.

We offer a complete assortment of LED for all lighting applications. Our team conducts energy audits to determine the most cost-effective solution for each project location. The audit results in a financial analysis showing detailed owning and operating cost savings/avoidance including all benefits realized by converting to maintenance-free LED lighting products.

We are focused on fortifying our clients’ balance sheet by reducing facility energy consumption and HVAC load while eliminating time and maintenance associated with traditional lighting systems. We offer environmentally friendly LED bulbs, retrofit kits and new fixtures for most every lighting application.

Our professional lighting experts will perform a complimentary site survey of your facility or produce the financial analysis and conversion recommendations if provided with a PDF or DWG drawing of the facility and a Lighting Fixture Schedule.

In addition to LED Lighting conversions, we offer complete Energy Services to address every aspect of your energy needs.

The intelligence features added to the LED lighting and control systems have reduced owning & operating costs by 97%.